That day, they don't give her any food. Punishment. She didn't know. She always knew. Maybe she should have lied- but no. The robots who live in the speakers (and in her mind) would see everything, would see a big red LIE printed right next to whatever number she'd have come up with.
Her entire world is just crumbling in on itself, folding itself into those three small words she wrote on that damned paper.
I don't know.
Soon, three words will become two.
Not possible. Not possible. Not possible.
And then it will become one.
No. No. No.
No.
མངོན་ཤེས་
There are nineteen keys that make up the essence of the universe. Originally there had been twenty, but that one had been sacrificed to seal in some evil thing or the other. She was never one for theology. Anyways, the other nineteen were tossed into a melting pot of what would become eight billion human souls (hmph, bullshit), changing them and forcing them to create nineteen subspecies of humans, each with specific sets of abilities granted to them.
Kamali herself received powers from the Saṃsāra Key, the key of death, which made her a Saṃsāra human. Her powers dealt with death, making her one of the least respected subsets of humans, as it had been considered dirty to even touch them at one point. It didn't help that her skin was black, either, or that she was a woman. Of course, marginalized groups tended to stick together and form their own communities.
Basically, what she was saying was that she had a squad.
"Hey, Kiona? Kinda need a little help with this small problem I have IkindofpickeduptheKaalakeyandImaybestuckinatimeloop."
There was a beat, and then, "WHAT?"
"Uh... surprise?"
"You. Fucking. Idiot."
"I didn't do it on purpose!"
"Oh, knowing you, that is exactly what you did."
"I don't want to be stuck in a time loop!"
There was a muffled series of expletives and the distinct sound of a lamp falling over before the phone was reclaimed.
"Kamali? It's Roshanna. You found the Kaala key?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Do you remem- Kiona shut up- remember what happened in the last loop?"
"Woke up at 4 AM, ran out of milk for my cereal so I ate it dry, decided to untwist my African braids, decided against it, watched daytime TV and then got a call that another body was found, and picked up the stupid key and then boom."
"Okay so- don't fucking bite my hand you kuthi- I think if you- I swear if you lick my hand one more time I will tell your mother we're fucking- If you touch the key again you should probably snap out of the loop."
"Thanks."
"No I will not- fine just stop licking my hand!- Kiona says you owe Priya a visit."
"She still likes princesses, right?"
"No, that was so last season. Just get her a toy car and she'll be happy."
"Yeah, sure."
Kamali groaned and ended the call, then flopped back down on her coffee stained comforter. Her feet still hung off the edge of the bed -the benefits of being almost six feet tall- and her African braids were doing their damned hardest to tangle together. Probably why she had briefly considered undoing them, before then remembering the effort it took to untwist them last time and deciding against it.
A sudden hunger pang alerted her to the fact that she still hadn't had, well, breakfast. She dragged herself off the bed, electing to pull the blankets around her as a cloak and walked into her small kitchen, then remembered that she was out of milk. A quick glance at the clock told her it was still 4:30 in the morning, and probably not the best time to get groceries.
Was it better to go hungry or eat dry cereal? A question that had plagued many. Kamali shrugged and grabbed an old plastic bowl and poured out her Lucky Charms into the bowl, picking out a few more marshmallows from the box and adding them into the bowl. Forgoing the spoon altogether, she grabbed a handful of sugared cardboard and marshmallow bits and popped them in her mouth as she moved to sit at the dining table for one. Moving a couple papers out of the way, she looked over the current case papers, the matter of the Kaala key almost completely out of her mind. She may be a genius, but she was still only seventeen, and only focused on one thing at a time.
The high-school dropout muttered as she added another name to her list of victims.
Penny Hizkar
Jerry Simons
Miria Polsy
Ben Picktorn
Kamali groaned as she looked at the profiles for the three previous victims. Absolutely nothing connected any of them. Penny was a white politician who lived in the 'Diamond District' with her fiance. Jerry was a black engineer father of two with a house in the Housing District. Miria was white immigrant from Germany, living in the slums. None of them had anything in common, except for how they were killed. They all had their brains fried.
Suddenly, she grabbed Polsy's file and scanned through the meaningless information until she rested on the small designation besides her picture.
"Species: Unknown Human".
Undeterred by the gap of information, she picked up Simon's profile.
"Species: Kaala Human. Ability: to always arrive on time"
There. A Kaala Human. She would bet money that Miria would have discovered a time-related ability had she survived past age twenty-six. And if she wasn't wrong, Picktorn and Hizkar would be either Kaalas or Unknowns.
Kamali leaned back in her chair and picked up the final file on her desk. She skimmed through Penny's file, resting on the species. Unknown. Damn. It must have been hard, being a politician while not knowing your species. They were strangely anal-retentive about that. Being an unknown wasn't bad per se, hell, she'd known tons of people who'd lived their entire lives without discovering their species, but it meant you could be anywhere from a lowly Samsara human to an Indiraa.
Ah, species. That little thing that everyone pretended didn't exist, but still cared the most about. She should be glad it wasn't something you could see at first glance, like her skin color or awkwardly scarred features. She knew that was what everyone noticed as soon as they looked at her. It was hard not to. The scar stretched across her high forehead, down the narrow bridge of her nose, and finally came to a stop in the middle of her left cheek. It was jagged and narrowly missed her eyes, and looked a bit like someone had attempted to cut her in half with a butter knife. She usually managed to cover it up with some makeup, but then again, dark enough foundation that matched her skin tone was hard as fuck to find usually. Sometimes, she just left it out in the open, and looked people dead in the eyes when they stared too long.
Which reminded her. The little digital clock on the microwave flashed '5:12' over and over, and the world had just started to wake up. The birds had begun their annoying twitters, and door were just beginning to open and let out lazily moving people who looked like ants from her vantage point up on the seventh floor. She finally got up and put her long drained cereal bowl into the sink, cursing when she managed to bang both little toes on the table. She had to a few seconds to appreciate the pure ability to fuck up that badly, before limping back to her bedroom with a little coffee in a mug. It splashed a bit on the already well-stained comforter, with, amusingly enough, left a slightly duck-shaped stain.
Finally, after finishing the coffee and feeling a bit better, everything began to set in a bit better.
HOLY FUCK I'VE PICKED UP THE KAALA KEY I'M STUCK IN A FUCKING TIME LOOP THIS IS ACTUALLY A REALLY BAD THING WHY THE HELL WERE KIONA AND ROSHANNA SO CHILL WITH IT I AM FREAKING OUT
Freak-out finished, she presently got up off her bed and got ready for the day. First came the foundation and concealer routine, which she had perfected over the last three years, and could now erase the off-color seam in the middle of her face perfectly. Then a dash of eyeliner because it would look weird if it was just foundation on her face. Experience had told her that she should do this quickly lest she spend a good two hours attempting to make it perfectly symmetrical. Mascara because her pitiful excuse for eyelashes could use all the fucking help they could get. Eyeshadow because she had fucking black irises she was going to milk that for all that was worth. And lipstick that was the exact shade of blood because it made her feel better about being stuck in a fucking time loop because she picked up a key that's not even supposed to exist-
Okay, freak-out averted. She had hoped that the monotony of her morning routine would help ground herself because that was what all the bullshit self-help psychiatrists said. She muttered curses as she slipped on some gloves, and then cast another glance at the clock. It was 5:34, and she was still bored. She shrugged and decided to boot up her laptop. She might as well learn as much as she could about what she's gotten herself into.
The first thing she did was type 'Kaala Key' into Google. Which was fucking stupid but whatever, it did what she wanted.
The first thing that appeared was a square of text, right before all the links.
"The Kaala Key is one of the nineteen eternal keys that were mixed into human souls to produce the powers wielded by Kaala Humans. It is the Key of Time, and is thought that anyone capable of mastering it can master time itself."
-Sukhi Das, The Keys to Life
Well. That was helpful in telling her exactly what she already knew. Although, that last part was interesting. Mastering time itself? She had never heard of that. She scrolled down and saw the first thing on the list was the Wikipedia article. Probably the best thing to read right now. She clicked the link and groaned as she saw the things typed out in size thirty-six font in front of her.
Geez. Species pride, she gets that, but defiling Wikipedia articles? She scrolls down the crudely declared "Kaalas are da best!" and sighs in relief to see the information below untouched. Skimming, she finally sees something that catches her attention.
"It is thought that mastering the key will master time itself. The key will test those of little faith, and if they fail, they will be erased from time itself."
Oh, fuck. She was being tested. By a key.
